knight2255 wrote:I'm brand new to php and I want to do a few exercises I've seen in some tutorials/etc on the net. Do I need a web server to just practice php? What is a good way to get setup. thanx guys

Hi there,
no you don't. You may as well go to http://www.phpide.de and get the "PHP Coder". You can then get the PHP runtimes at http://www.php.net. If you then install them on your machine you can do some things on your computer without the need of a server. I have to warn you, though, that you may not be able to do certain things as will when/if you get an accesss to a server. But you can certainly learn alot from your computer only.
regards,
Manos